


Turning Over a New Leaf

by greygerbil



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2019-10-07
Packaged: 2020-10-21 15:23:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20695748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greygerbil/pseuds/greygerbil
Summary: While Leonardo busies himself with a codex page, Ezio finds a very interesting set of sketches.





	Turning Over a New Leaf

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thedevilchicken](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/gifts).

“It will take me a moment.”

By the delight in Leonardo’s eyes more than by his words, Ezio knew that he would be at this for a while. Easy ciphers still interested his friend greatly for the secrets they held, but he really enjoyed the ones that gave him a bit of a challenge. Ezio couldn’t help but grin at his enthusiasm.

“I’m going to wait here if you don’t mind,” he said.

“Of course,” Leonardo answered, vaguely waving his hand in the direction of his work table and chairs, focus already on the codex page. “Make yourself comfortable.”

Outside of Monteriggioni, Leonardo’s workshop was perhaps the only place where Ezio could truly do so. When he was here, he knew that he did not have to look over his shoulder. He remembered how, years ago, he’d dozed off as Leonardo had put together his first blade, even as his world seemed to be falling apart around him.

He was not tired now, though, and so after Ezio had sat down on a chair he began aimlessly sifting through the mess of sketches on Leonardo’s table. He was always working on a hundred things at once and you could usually randomly reach in to find something filled with promise of artistic greatness or an idea for a construction that seemed to come out of some fantastical story of the future.

For a moment, Ezio tried to understand something that looked vaguely like a carriage with several sizeable extra attachments, but since Leonardo usually mirrored his writing and on top of that used a shorthand that Ezio still couldn’t figure out, it was impossible to say what had been his aim with this invention. He had already opened his mouth to ask, but glancing at Leonardo, he saw him brooding over the codex page with such fervent concentration that he doubted he would be heard at all.

Smiling, Ezio put the page aside and started digging a little deeper. Under a heap of paper, his fingers nudged against a stack of pages loosely stitched together like a book. Ezio opened it, wondering what Leonardo chose to bundle so when he was usually so happy to live in his loose-leafed chaos that laid for everyone to see.

The first page showed an anatomical sketch of a muscular man, naked and gazing in the distance off the corner of the page. In comparison to most statues and drawings Ezio had seen, he was rather well-endowed. Long hair dark with artfully applied coal fell over his shoulders.

There were a few more such sketches of men standing and bending and twisting, probably to figure how to draw the muscle moving. Then Ezio flipped another page and found himself looking at two men embracing. Thanks to Leonardo’s talent, the reason for their touch was easy to see: there was passion in the tension of their muscles, visible need. Ezio found himself staring, so enraptured that it took him a moment to notice the much more explicit continuation in which the male figures laid on the ground, one having slung his legs around the hips of the other.

Ezio felt a familiar rush of blood downwards and was unsure if it was just the lifelike quality of the pictures that affected him so easily or knowing that they had flown out of Leonardo’s hand. His friend had always seemed interested in the human body only when he could represent it in painting or take it apart for scientific research. When Ezio pointed out a beautiful woman to him, he might praise her in the way he would have a work of art, but never show a flicker of excitement. Ezio had eventually figured that since his head was buzzing with so many interests already, maybe he just did not have time for his own base instincts. It was a shame, as Leonardo was a handsome man made more alluring by his bright mind and kind temperament, but you could not force these things, of course.

Apparently, Ezio couldn’t have been more wrong. There was sketch after sketch of men writhing naked, as explicit as they could be. No wonder Ezio had never been able to entice him with women! They did not seem to feature much when his thoughts turned to intimate matters. Ezio very much admired their beauty, of course, and liked to do so up close, but he couldn’t say that this didn’t spur his imagination, too. He had had his adventures, especially when he was young and careless and drunk and him and some friend had convinced themselves it didn’t count if they could barely remember it in the morning. Getting with women was easier and so that was what he usually fell back on, but he couldn’t say that he’d enjoyed those fumbling moments in the dark any less. Now he wished he had tried to get to know men more closely despite the hurdles in the way. Leonardo’s pictures made it look like heaven

“This is interesting! I think it’s playing with a variation of Ancient Greek te-”

Ezio looked up, startled out of a very close inspection of one man sitting on the hips of another, and found Leonardo staring at him, all colour drained from his face. Then, he jumped to his feet and, moving faster than Ezio had ever seen him do, dashed over to tear the book from his hand.

“I – I did not mean to leave this out.”

Ezio rose from the chair.

“It seems like you’ve been hiding more than just a book from me.”

“I figured you knew! The assassins have a great deal of information on everyone, don’t they? Why did you think I was arrested?” Leonardo looked more unhappy with each passing second. “It wasn’t my intention to deceive you. I had hoped that perhaps you simply did not mind enough to mention it to me.”

The frightened disquiet in Leonardo’s voice finally tipped Ezio off to the fact that his friend might think that he was going to judge him for his preferences.

Ezio scoffed. Yes, he understood the dangers that speaking of such things meant, but Leonardo had hidden him from guards when the whole city was searching for him, had taken beatings for him with hardly as much as a comment. How could he think that this was where Ezio drew the line to their friendship?

“I had heard you spent a few nights behind bars, but I never thought to ask. I guess I figured you had gotten into some trouble. Most young men I knew did,” he clarified and gave a lopsided grin. “But I ran with a different crowd than you.” He grasped his shoulder. “The next time anyone tries to have you dragged away for something so trivial, talk to me. I will make sure you won’t need to worry.”

After a moment of careful hesitation, Leonardo regained his smile as he looked up from the book at Ezio. “Thank you, my friend. That is very good of you.”

“Don’t mention it.”

It may not have been completely moral to use Leonardo’s understandable moment of relief for his gain, but Ezio was an assassin, not a priest. He snatched the book right back out of his hands as he saw his fingers slacken.

“Ezio!” Leonardo exclaimed, reflexively making another grab for it.

“They’re good pictures,” Ezio claimed, grinning broadly, easily holding it out of his reach this time. “It’s not fair to keep them all to yourself.”

“You will not find any naked women in there if that is what you’re looking for,” Leonardo said with a huff, allowing his shoulders to slack a little and stepping back.

“Who said that I was?”

Ezio opened the book on a random page, which showed two men wound about each other, holding on as for dear life, one deep in the other which the angle just allowed a glimpse on. The one on top had the long dark hair again, but it was pulled back with a band this time. The muscles were more than you’d expect on an artist but not so bulging and compact as you’d find on a peasant who lifted bales of hay all day. Perhaps that thin line across the mouth was only a smudge...

“You seem to like a certain type of man.”

If Leonardo had been pale before, he had grown red now.

“I am sure everybody has their preferences.”

“You should tell me more about yours sometime, since you held out on me so long.”

When Ezio placed the book back into Leonardo’s hand, he clasped his fingers between his own for a long moment.

“Oh,” Leonardo made, staring at him.

Ezio had never really seduced a man before, but as he saw the wide smile on Leonardo’s face when he pulled his hand up and kissed it, he was sure he could figure it out as he went.


End file.
